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| There have been a few echidnas around in this dry weather & this one totally perplexed Rosie and Bruce |
I’m sitting in the ute outside Hastings
Caves enjoying a wonderful few minutes of quiet, calm and rest. It’s still
school holidays for Luke, so I’ve brought him and the two new WWOOFs down here
for a bit of a treat. We picked up Luke’s little mate from Southport en route.
He’s in Luke’s class at Huonville Primary but travels an hour each way from
Southport because he didn’t get on well at Dover school (much closer to
Southport). He’s a real sweetie and seems to think a lot of Luke – although
Luke rather takes his friendship for granted.
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| Outside Hastings Caves |
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| In thermal pool at Hastings Caves |
Holidays are over for me and Bronte
however. I went back to work Monday last week and Bronte went back last
Thursday. He was obliged to take the Mon, Tues & Wed off to look after Luke
as childcare didn’t start until this week. Work is still going well for me and
thanks to the lady who has been transferring the role to me, I’m feeling fairly
confident about most of it. Plus I’ve got to the age where I just don’t worry
so much about making mistakes.
We had a great, if busy break. We spent
much of it chopping fireweed and thistles on the land we’re buying alongside us.
Neighbours have begun to wonder what we are doing on the land, although we’ve
continued to keep quiet about it. It’s taking a tediously long time to
complete. The solicitors took a long Christmas break and the bank also sat on
our paperwork for 2 weeks before actioning anything. Only then did they think
to ask for the certificate of title, which I posted ‘Express Platinum’ at vast
expense, only for the bank to lose it on receipt. That's still the situation. We feel rather embarrassed (and very frustrated ourselves) as we said to the vendors that we
were ready to complete quickly – we just hadn’t taken into account the length
of time it would take 3rd parties to do their thing.
Christmas was fun. On Christmas Eve Bronte
and I drew metaphorical straws to see who would take Luke for a bicycle ride
and who would mow around the house. I got to go cycling which was infinitely
preferable to mowing, apart from the stress of watching Luke and ensuring he didn’t
veer in front of traffic or fall into a pothole. Despite my caution, he did steer off the road into a ditch on one occasion, but was luckily unhurt.
All the way down Crabtree Road
to the local shop, he kept trying to scratch his head under his helmet. At the
shop I made him take his helmet off and examined him – only to find he had
nits! Not much we could do about it at that stage, it being 5pm. I said I would
have to shave his head but he didn’t want to be bald for Santa Claus or for Christmas
Day. So in the interim I spread tea-tree and citronella oil in his hair which effectively deterred the
active nits. On Boxing Day morning we had a hair-cutting
session on the deck – first Luke, then Bronte. I didn’t cut Bronte’s quite so
drastically short. Luke looked like a chemo kid or a refugee from
Belsen being so skinny and bony and bald.
A few days’ later Bruce got similar treatment, although not with the same
clippers!
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| Very bald Luke! |
On Christmas Day I cooked a big dinner of
half a piglet stuffed with a young turkey. We’d planned to have goat but I was
so tired a couple of days before Christmas, that I baulked at butchering a
goat. The turkey was too young to die really, but one of my regular meat
customers had pleaded for turkey. As they were still so small I planned to do 3
of them for her – but I’d only just started the third when she arrived to take
them away. She seemed happy enough with her two overgrown ‘quail’ and we had
the third. It was very tasty if somewhat minute. I sold 2 geese just before Christmas
– I’m wondering how the chap got on plucking them. We’ve got 5 young goat
wethers that we need to sell or butcher. I put an ad in last Sat’s paper and
got one call but so far no sales. So I think I’ll have more luck selling them as
meat. If I take them to the abbatoir however, I’ll hardly make anything – as
there’s maybe only 10-12kg of meat on each, despite them being well grown. So I
might gird my loins soon and try and do the smallest one for us and see how it
goes.
We’ve also discovered a great new source of
meat. The goose and bunny pen was becoming overrun with rabbits, so I stalked
around the outside of the pen on one occasion and got 3 of the biggest young
rabbits – and a 4th since then. I had a quick look on the internet
and found a great UK blog about living off the land, which included detailed information on how to prepare rabbit. Skinning and gutting them turned
out to be the easiest thing out. The skin comes off pretty much like pulling
off a sock and gutting is quick and straightforward too. I soaked two in
brine one night, then boiled them up in a simple stock the next morning. In the
afternoon I picked off all the meat and made a lovely thick rabbit stew. I
remember the things that put me off rabbit when I was young were all the bones,
the fact that sometimes they’d be old and gamey, plus sometimes you’d crunch on lead shot. As mine were all head shots we didn’t have that
issue. Everyone loved the stew so they might be forming a staple part of our
diet in the future.
Not all has been rosy on the rabbit front
however. The dogs have killed around 3 over the last couple of weeks. I
mentioned that they (the bunnies, not the dogs) were chewing through the fish net
and squeezing through the holes in the chicken wire. Out in the open they were
easy prey for the dogs, which just couldn’t resist. There should be no more
escapees now – I bought some aviary wire (much more than I needed in fact) –
and the girls cut it in half lengthwise and stapled and fastened it with netting
clips all the way around the bottom of the pen.
We had put Bertie, our lovely Rex buck, who
had eczema or similar, back in the pen after we’d treated him and his fur had
grown back. Then we heard a terrible squeal and it turned out that he was getting
beaten up by one of the big white rabbits I’d bought as breeder does. I was
immediately suspicious. Cindy & Lewis, who were still WWOOFing at the time,
caught the white one and on inspection it turned out that ‘Bronwyn’ bunny was
not a doe after all, but a buck. ‘Bronwyn the Bertie-Bunny-Beater’, I called
it. So we caught Bertie again and put him in with the turkeys where he'd be safe and put ‘Bronwyn’
back to breed with Alice, the other white bunny. Bertie seemed pretty happy but
foolishly ventured out one day and fell foul of the dogs. He was
still alive when we rescued him but it was too late – the damage was done. Poor
Bertie became pig food.
The peacock that was in the sick bay in the
garage also died. I’m sure she’d been attacked by something as there were marks
on her head. Despite me lancing her swollen wounds and treating her regularly
with betadine, she continued to decline. Without something like a crop
syringe I couldn’t get her to feed. She just showed no interest in all the
little titbits I prepared for her. In the end, she was looking so miserable
that I decided to put her down. Once again, the pigs benefited.
No luck getting
peachicks this year. For one thing I think the male is too young, and secondly
the crows and possums have been getting by my defences and nicking the eggs.
Luke and I found loads of broken shells up in 2 of the goat paddocks where we
were on fireweed patrol, plus we discovered holes that had been chewed through
the bottom of the wire around their pen in a couple of places. I patched those
up and I’ve made nest boxes for them (which a crow would be unlikely to go
into), but I'm not sure it’s made a difference. I put a possum trap in there and
we caught 4 possums almost on successive nights. The male peacock has now taken
to getting out at nights – not sure where or why and he’s always desperate to
get back in in the morning.
Returning, belatedly, to Christmas Day:
Cindy and Lewis, who had left us for pastures new by then, came back for dinner
and two pairs of neighbours came around in the afternoon. It had been planned
that one pair would join us for dinner but we had a classic mix-up. We have
Christmas dinner at lunchtime, or at least early afternoon, whereas they had
thought ‘dinner’ would be in the evening. So we ended up with a huge load of
meat, trifle and mince-pies which we had to plough through over the following
few days. We all received some really nice prezzies. Luke and I bought Bronte a
smartphone (which promptly stopped working and took nearly 2 weeks to get
replaced), plus an audio book. They bought me perfume, a new camera (ours broke a
few days before Christmas) and a great new leather knapsack-style handbag. Luke
had loads of stuff including a 3D puzzle, a huge lego kit and several books
(which he read at the rate of one per day).
For New Year, we decided to do something a
bit different. Normally we go down to the Sandy Bay foreshore to spend an hour
or two with one of Luke’s playmates of old who has her birthday 31 December. This time I booked us a little trip on
a harbour boat, from which we could watch the fireworks close-up. It was really
rather fun (if a little cold – Luke borrowed my coat leaving me
exposed). The atmosphere on the waterfront was lively, with The Taste in full
swing, a large cruise liner docked alongside, people visiting the harbour bars,
buskers and various events on the parliament lawns. We even sat up and watched
the Sydney fireworks on TV, although it all seemed rather unreal on the small
screen, filmed from some distance. Overhead shots of rockets exploding looked
more like giant lollipops. I’m sure it would have been spectacular to have been
there in person.
It was Bronte’s birthday on 2 January. I
was a bit embarrassed as most of the stuff I’d ordered off the internet: audio
books, science books and a Tassie devil golf club-head cover, had not arrived.
Also, we had a doctor’s appointment for Luke early that morning – to assess his
asthma and his nervous fidgeting and night wakening. In the end the golf club
cover arrived so we had something to give him, Luke made him a nice card and
the two of them went off to the Glen Huon golf course in the afternoon. A
little gruelling for Luke, but a chance for Bronte to try out the snazzy new
driver that he’d bought online.
Last weekend we treated ourselves to a trip
to the ‘Monster Trucks’ event at a small raceway near New Norfolk. It was a
slightly bizarre but good fun occasion. We got to the track in plenty of time,
but they decided to start half an hour later ‘to give people still on the road
time to get there’! We ended up frozen, as the weather had changed and there
was a terrifically cold wind. The monster trucks (4 thereof) were certainly
quite spectacular and did lots of crunching over old cars and sometimes jumping
fairly high. It was obvious however, that the owners were taking it easy – they
didn’t want to damage a $4300K vehicle for the sake of entertaining us. But
there were still some ‘wow’ moments. One – my favourite – broke down almost
immediately. The highlight of the night was a jet van which roared around the
track setting light to its jet plume. Once it got dark that was particularly
appealing. We also had the Hilux precision driving team, which was pretty
impressive. The whole thing went on far too long, but was still good
entertainment. At the end there was a great fireworks display – pretty much the
equivalent of the family fireworks in Hobart at New Year’s Eve.
Back on the farm, apart from weeding, the
main activities have been starting to put in a new section of goat electric
fence and getting our hay in – finally. The hay man waited until our grass
looked quite parched before finally arriving – although the final bales looked
better than we expected. This was the first year that Bronte was fully involved
in hay-carting. It was a great help to have someone strong helping heave the
bales onto the ute (although he muttered regularly about itchy arms). We had
425 bales and got them in over 2 days. I like to get it done on one day, but
with just me and Bronte lifting them it was really quite tiring – and dusty and
windy. Our new WWOOFer – Helen, a feisty 18-yr old
from Austria – managed admirably to drive the ute around the paddocks for us,
having never driven before in her life! It was a sterling performance.
Afterwards I undressed on our bedroom deck and just left all my hairy clothes
there for the following day. I confess I threw my t-shirt and socks out when
all the hay was safely in as I just couldn’t face picking all the bits of grass
out of them. It’s bad enough picking out all the pesky buzzies from socks and
other clothing after every outing nowadays. I wear gumboots most of the time
just to try and protect myself from attack.
The goat fence has become necessary owing
to the solar-powered energiser suddenly deteriorating. I
suspect there is nothing wrong with the panel, so I intend to put that on the
battery powering the pigs’ little energiser. We’ve still got a smaller solar-powered
one, but that is only suitable for small pens. I’ve decided to use an old
mains-powered one from a farm-sale but that means running a low-resistance
earth and live line from the house to the nearest point of the goat paddocks. I
already had some underground cable from a garage sale so I’m going underground
where it is too inconvenient to have live wires above ground. It’s partially
complete but already the wallabies managed to tangle the wires up such that I
could barely part them. Finding time to finish anything these days is a real
struggle. I’m just too tired in the evenings after work to do anything much –
and I don’t get finished with the cooking and dishes and packing up until 8.30
or later.
The most notable feature of the last month
or so has been the unprecedented dry and hot weather. We’ve barely had 5mm of
rain in the last four weeks. Also we’ve had many days in the high 20s (deg C) and
one very hot day of 39degC (Hobart experienced a record 41.8 on the same day).
Tasmania has had many bushfires – some of which have raged uncontrolled for
weeks now. Luckily none ever threatened us directly, although one in the
Midlands looked worrying for a time. We took the precaution of filling 44
gallon drums on the decks plus a couple of small paddling pools (which Luke and
I jumped in after filling them with freezing creek water). For
a few days we were totally shrouded in smoke. That and howling winds kept us
tossing and turning at nights. The temperature has since cooled considerably
and it is already feeling autumnal mornings and evenings. We’ve still had no
rain to speak of however. The ground is dry and hard, the grass crispy, but we
are still better off even than properties on the other side of the valley – let
alone those around Hobart and the east coast. The only advantage of the dry weather is that we haven't had to mow for weeks!
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| Smoke haze over our land during the worst of the fires (above and below) |
Tens of thousands of acres of bush have
been razed to the ground and many people have been left homeless particularly
on the Tasman Peninsula, where residents and tourists alike were stranded as
the highway was cut. That fire – sometimes termed the Forcett fire – still
burns as does that up in the Midlands at Lake Repulse and another, even larger
one over on the west coast in the world heritage area. The latter is apparently
acting more as a fuel reduction burn, not affecting the canopy in any major
way.
We currently have two WWOOFers, Helen,
mentioned earlier and Bee a girl in her twenties from Taiwan. Helen is small
and energetic, speaks English very well as she attended an International School
for a time, laughs easily and gets on well with Luke. Bee, an artist busker, is
gradually coming out of her shell but clearly struggles with the language. Her
vocabulary appears to be reasonably good but she has trouble understanding what
I say – I’m tending to rely on Helen for translation – and I often
misunderstand what she says. Prior to these two, we had Natasha for a few days,
a young American girl, who had to leave early owing to family problems back in
the states. I liked Natasha, but she was quiet and rarely asked questions,
which could make her an uneasy companion at times. I couldn’t fault her
willingness to work however, despite her arriving on a 39degC day! Owing to
having Little Athletics the following day, we went around the afternoon she
arrived and fed and watered all the animals so we didn’t have to do them in the
morning. That day I had been in Huonville all morning, shopping and visiting
the doctors. After the animals I helped Bronte with the fire precautions and
frankly by the time I got to sit down I think I was somewhat under the weather
from heat exhaustion.
We’ve occasionally cooled ourselves down on the hottest days by going on creek runs – this entails walking down the creek fully clothed and jumping into the waterhole under the waterfall. It certainly has the desired effect as the water is icy!
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| Bee |
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| Helen |
We’ve occasionally cooled ourselves down on the hottest days by going on creek runs – this entails walking down the creek fully clothed and jumping into the waterhole under the waterfall. It certainly has the desired effect as the water is icy!
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| Me and Luke part-way through a hideously difficult 2000-piece puzzle |
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| Jigsaw completed - of course once I got to within about 100 pieces of the end everyone suddenly wanted to get involved, so I didn't even get the satisfaction of putting the last few bits in! |
